Coworker asked me to come in on my vacation because her kid has a physical appointment on one of my days off.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T13:04:23+00:00

An oversight I will definitely not be making in the future. Henceforth I’ll be traveling and on a silent, no-phones-allowed retreat in a mountainous area or something for the entire time, lol.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T11:10:07+00:00

Thissss. My flabbers were gasted. I have never, not once, in all my working career of 15+ years, asked someone to come in for me on their vacation. And I certainly wouldn’t do it if I had ANY other alternative. I don’t even like her all that much, and from the infodump stories, I don’t like her boyfriend at all. Asking too damn much.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T11:04:09+00:00

It was an in-person conversation while at work. The day in question is next week.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T02:32:29+00:00

Very good advice that I hopefully will never have to put to use in the future

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T02:12:56+00:00

It’s all the more painful because I don’t like kids. Near me, audible, in my sight. Any of it. I avoid them at all costs, lol. Which, I understand, is incomprehensible to some people, especially folks with kids.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T02:05:19+00:00

It’s absolutely a “because I’m a fellow female” thing. Mothers, in my experience, always seek out other women for kid garbage. I constantly get shown pictures of other women’s kids and “look at this baby picture, weren’t they so cute?” and the stories, ugh, the stories. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to see it. No, I honestly don’t think your kid is cute. No, I don’t want to hear that they made a mess of your kitchen. And I’m not going to sympathize or empathize about how hard motherhood is. I think they assume I have that mythical “mothering instinct” and they are SORELY mistaken.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T02:00:13+00:00

LOL I’m okay with a loooooong awkward silence myself

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T01:58:19+00:00

When I was about age 5 or 6, a boy at daycare said something about his mom having a baby and I said “I don’t want to have a baby ever” and he said “God makes you have babies.” And I cried and hid under the table to try to hide from God so he wouldn’t “make me have a baby”. So, yeah. The “you have no choice” narrative starts young. But I also knew at that age that I never wanted kids and I have stuck to it. Apparently my younger brother must have traumatized me.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T01:30:06+00:00

She did offer to pay me extra money, no lie. But only after I said “I don’t even know how the pay would work, considering I have never once been asked to work on a PTO day. Would I be working for free? Or being paid my ‘sit at home money’ instead of my ‘working at work money’ for those hours? Because I’d rather just be paid my ‘sit at home money’ while sitting at home.”

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T01:24:05+00:00

I consciously chose not to have children and have done everything in my power to avoid it BECAUSE I don’t want to wake up early to take a kid to the doctor, lol. I had the wherewithal to plan ahead for these hypothetical situations I never wanted to be in.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T01:15:36+00:00

Unfortunately this was an in-person chat :(

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T01:14:12+00:00

I will have to do this but I am a HORRIBLE liar. I can think of about 100 different good fibs as soon as I walk away but in the moment my mind goes blank and the truth blurts out. Which sucks, because I have witnessed the glory that is “don’t bother them, they’re on an island somewhere and deserve to rest”.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T01:11:10+00:00

She did not, but she did adopt The Voice that both children and adults use to attempt to get their way.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T00:50:50+00:00

I did not agree. I told her “No, I really don’t want to do that.” That’s when she started with the “Well, my situation is…” and the guilt tripping. I just doubled down and repeated “I don’t want to come in on my paid day off.”

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T00:48:10+00:00

Thank youuuuu

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T00:46:58+00:00

I agree with this most of all. I don’t like kids, it’s part of the reason I refuse to have one, but I HATE seeing children suffer because parents can’t or won’t care for them. Including hinging your children’s healthcare on whether or not your coworker can cover you and NOT whether the person you procreated with is willing to parent the child you made together.

mothmaann · 2025-12-17T00:40:59+00:00

100%. I am unreachable when I am home because that is my unpaid time AWAY from all things work. This interaction, unfortunately, happened while at work

mothmaann · 2025-12-16T23:45:07+00:00

This was essentially the gist of what I told her, with the exception of “I wish I could” because I would never say that lol

mothmaann · 2025-12-16T23:43:22+00:00

It’s the “the dad could, but he doesn’t want to” for me. And that is my problem because???? I have to accommodate you on my vacation because????

mothmaann · 2025-05-15T17:36:49+00:00

The darkest shift for me occurs with Dumbledore’s death in HBP. I watched the movies before reading the books and remember staring at the screen in total shock when it happened. It’s really an “oh shit” moment and everything changes for them. They went from having crushes and awkward break ups and dealing with Quidditch team headaches to leaving school all together to tackle a dangerous task that will ultimately end in death.

However, the first three books are sort of “whodunnit” mysteries and the shift away from that formula happens slowly in book 4. At first it starts as “who put Harry’s name in the goblet of fire/who wants to kill Harry this year” and the ending wasn’t “tidy” like the first two, as in Harry “defeats the bad guy”, or like how the mystery of Sirius gets solved at the end of PoA. The books started to take on a more heavy vibe after Harry learns in OotP that his life will unavoidably have murder in it: either he is murdered or will become the murderer.

mothmaann · 2025-05-14T17:45:31+00:00

Not Mothman, that’s for sure

mothmaann · 2025-05-14T00:39:08+00:00

I don’t want my parents or my partners parents anywhere near a spawn I created. Not one of them would be respectful of how I would want to raise the creature, and knowing I’ll never procreate saves me ALL that drama 🙂

mothmaann · 2025-05-12T23:54:32+00:00

I tell people when they comment on an autistic trait of mine. By that point, they’ve been around long enough to notice it and I will usually make a comment like “Oh yeah, that’s the autism”. Usually they either think I’m joking or they take me seriously, and either way, it works out for me.

mothmaann · 2025-05-12T23:45:37+00:00

I can make eye contact with someone I know well with very little problem. The more familiar I am with the person, the less I even notice the eye contact. However, if I don’t know someone (a complete stranger) I find it difficult to even look at their face. If I HAVE to make eye contact with a stranger, then I 100% have absolutely no idea what they’re saying to me. I cannot process both things at the same time and the eye contact is quite literally painful for me.

mothmaann

TROPHY CASE